By Jim Trageser

Marie Daulne is a woman and a musician. She is not a symbol.

And yet, she does seem to represent the modern world with its rapidly changing times in which cultural identity seems in flux like never before.

Offering herself up as an example along with Spanish-French singer Manu Chau and Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan, Daulne said cross-cultural music like that played by her band, Zap Mama (appearing Aug. 25 at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach), is the future of pop music.

"What Latinos are for Americans, Africans are for Europe," Daulne said from New York, where she was beginning Zap Mama's tour in support of the band's seventh album, "Supermoon."

"When Europeans want to have rhythm and sun, they go to Africa, as Americans do with Latin America."

Given her own family history ---- her mother comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), where she met Daulne's father, a Belgian who was murdered by rebels ---- and the band's definite African influences, Daulne said the band is often mislabeled as an Afro-pop combo.

"Zap Mama is not African music, it's Afro-European. For Africans, I am not African ---- I am European. I sound European in my accent, I don't speak an African language. I would compare myself more to the African-Americans here, based more on the rhythms. I do rhythm lightly."

After her father was killed by Simba rebels opposed to mixed-race relationships, Daulne's mother was able to escape with their children, eventually landing in Brussels, Belgium, where Marie was raised. It was growing up in Brussels that Marie said she fell in love with music.

"My mother had a kind of club for African people. She had a jukebox with Congolese music; I think they may have imprinted my ear."

On the radio at home, Marie and her siblings (she's the youngest of five) listened to a pretty broad spectrum of music.

"Pop music," she said when asked what she and her siblings listened to. "European, French and American pop. And a lot of jazz music."

Before forming Zap Mama, Daulne sang in Belgian jazz clubs and said that jazz continues to inform her singing, along with French chanson, African and pop singers. Still, she admits to loving jazz.

"The classical ones, like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Roberta Flack. ... Al Jarreau, George Benson. I'm thinking I tried to re-create their sounds. Airto Moreira and Tania Maria. When you grow up with two cultures, you jump easily from one culture to another.

"We would re-create the sounds together, we kids. It was where I developed my vocal sounds. My brother had an amazing capacity for vocals, and drums. I loved it!"

Zap Mama early on developed a reputation for its soaring vocal harmonies and an a cappella approach. Their new album, though, has a full band, a different sound from the band's early days. But Daulne said there is no overarching design to the band's career path, or even to the structure of putting together any of the band's albums.

"I'm not a person who has a goal," she said of the process of preparing and recording the songs on "Supermoon."

"I just do music because I was inspired at the moment. I am a spontaneous person. I had 38 compositions ready. We chose the ones with a certain maturity. When it's your own creation, you like it one week, and two weeks after we hate it, and then you love it again.

"I need help to make some choices."

Zap Mama
When: 9 p.m. Aug. 25
Where: Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach
Tickets: $18-$20
Info: (858) 481-8140
Web: bellyuptavern.com or zapmama.be